It will be another two to three months before the backers of the FERC-approved Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal project will know if they will try to transform their project into an export facility. Jordan Cove earlier confirmed that it has taken its first step toward seeking an export license.

When and if the export license is sought depends upon Jordan Cove’s ability to identify potential overseas LNG buyers, Project Manager Bob Braddock told NGI Friday.

Jordan Cove is talking to a variety of prospective buyers, Braddock said. “Power companies in Asia who want a source for natural gas from North America” represent one type of prospective shipper, he said. North American producers seeking to broaden their market would be another group of potential users of a West Coast export facility, as would Asian trading companies.

“We anticipate that it will be between 60 and 90 days before we have a clear picture of which prospective terminal capacity holders are real or just kicking tires,” Braddock said.

Jordan Cove’s latest action was to file an application Thursday with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The DOE application is a necessary preliminary step to making a full-fledged export request made to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Increasingly, industry analysts are saying that North American producers of extensive gas resources will seek to sell at least some of those volumes to global markets where gas will fetch higher prices than in the United States.

As one of the two still-active proposed LNG receiving terminal projects in Oregon, Jordan Cove said during the summer that it was exploring the possibility of changing its plans to include an export facility (see Daily GPI, Aug. 26). The backers of Jordan Cove LNG at Coos Bay, OR, also recently purchased a 200-acre site at its designated location along the state’s south-central Pacific Coast.

Jordan Cove is a limited partnership of an affiliate of Alberta-based Fort Chicago Energy Partners LP and Energy Projects Development LLC, proposing to build the terminal at Coos Bay’s international port. Fort Chicago and units of PG&E Corp. and The Williams Cos. are partnering on a connecting 1.2 Bcf/d transmission pipeline called the Pacific Connector project.

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